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Down by the Dark Arches

[ Roud 1442 ; Master title: Down by the Dark Arches ; trad.]

Roy Palmer: Everyman’s Book of British Ballads Sam Richards & Tish Stubbs: The English Folksinger

Walter Pardon sang Down by the Dark Arches at home in Knapton, Norfolk, to Bill Leader on 12 February 1977. This recording was published in the same year on his Leader album Our Side of the Baulk. Bill Leader quoted him as:

There was an old blind fiddler come round here. Oh I don’t know how many years ago. Might be eighty year ago, for what I know. And he was known as Blind Harry. Periodically he’d come. He’d come up to this door, or any door, and in pubs. And they thought he was an old broken down professional, how he was shabbily genteel dressed. He’d play all sorts of dance tunes. That was his signature tune—Down by the Dark Arches. No one knew it. And when Pat Mackenzie come here, I mentioned it to her, and Pat got the song from Mike Yates, I think. But that’s a twisted version from Harry’s. Pat’s stopped, the version she give me, “;Down by the dark arches down by the railway”, that stopped there. The chorus: “O yes she did so she did wack fol the riddle ol day” was Harry’s put in with it, you see. Billy knew some, but not all. So that’s where I“got it; from Pat.

Lyrics

Walter Pardon sings Down by the Dark Arches

As I walked out one day in July
A fair pretty damsel there I did espy
Singing “Villikins and Dinah” so sweet and so gay
Down by the dark arches under the railway
O yes she did so she did wack fol the riddle ol day

I stepped up to her so gay and so free
And for the same ballad I paid one ha’penny
Will you be my sweetheart to her I did say
Down by the dark arches under the railway
O yes I did so I did wack fol the riddle ol day

O no my dear chap that never can be
There’s a man there in blue and he’s watching for me
And if he should see me what would he say
Down by the dark arches under the railway
O yes she did so she did wack fol the riddle ol day

At last she consented away we both went
Five shillings on oysters and lobsters I spent
And six drops of brandy for her I did pay
Down by the dark arches under the railway
O yes I did so I did wack fol the riddle ol day

Then up came a chap with a black eye and a stick
He drank up my brandy and broke my pickwick
Pop goes the weasel to me he did say
Down by the dark arches under the railway
O yes he did so he did wack fol the riddle ol day

He squared up to me and pulled my watch out
He spoilt my beaver and damaged my snout
He kicked me in the gutter and there I did lay
Down by the dark arches under the railway
O yes he did so he did wack fol the riddle ol day

I lay in the gutter till four in the morn
As naked as any poor creature was bom
And when I awakened so stiff there I lay
Down by the dark arches under the railway
O yes I did so I did wack fol the riddle ol day

Four bobbies came up and to my surprise
I’d got no shirt on me to cover my thighs
They put me on a stretcher and bore me away
From beneath the dark arches under the railway
O yes they did so they did wack fol the riddle ol day

I sent to me mother for money and clothes
Likewise a doctor to patch up my nose
You’ve not had fair play to me he did say
Down by the dark arches under the railway
O yes he did so he did wack fol tbe riddle ol day

Now all you young chaps take warning by me
And never go courting when you’re out on the spree
Never take those young ladies from out of their way
Down to the dark arches under the railway
O yes I did so I did wack fol the riddle ol day